1. Field of the Invention
The present invention generally relates to an image forming apparatus, a job control method, and an information recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, there have been known techniques for allowing users to execute a job or access data based on the authority of the user. For example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2006-72808 discloses an information processing apparatus in which access to an electronic file from a user terminal is permitted based on the physical position of the user terminal.
In an image forming apparatus, a scanning job and a printing job are usually performed after the scanning conditions and printing conditions are specified. For example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2005-278143 discloses an image forming apparatus in which scanning conditions and printing conditions are specified from a client terminal, and an image forming apparatus capable of performing the process in accordance with the specified scanning conditions and printing conditions is selected to perform the process. Similarly, there may be cases where an image forming apparatus includes plural functions but the functions that can be used by the users may be different depending on the users.
However, in such an image forming apparatus capable of determining whether a job is to be executed based on the authority of each user, when, for example, an authenticated user attempts to cancel a job that had been requested by the authenticated user before, it is necessary to authenticate the user again. Unfortunately, there have been no access control methods disclosed capable of eliminating such an additional authentication process including in a technique disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2006-72808.
As a result of this inconvenience, there may arise a problem that when, for example, a user has instructed an image forming apparatus to execute a job using his/her account so that the job is executed at a prescribed execution time and then logs off, but later the user logs in and attempts to control the job, (such as cancel the job), the image forming apparatus may not recognize the relationship between the account of the user and the job. Furthermore, when a user sets an execution time of a job so that the job is to be executed at the execution time later but power to the image forming apparatus is turned OFF, the information of the job instruction may be disadvantageously deleted, thereby making it impossible to execute the job.